Bush Leaguers

by Thomas A. Droleskey

To these evils we must add the contests between political parties, many of which struggles do not originate in a real difference of opinion concerning the public good or in a laudable and disinterested search for what would best promote the common welfare, but in the desire for power and for the protection of some private interest which inevitably result in injury to the citizens as a whole. From this course there often arise robberies of what belongs rightly to the people, and even conspiracies against and attacks on the supreme authority of the state, as well as on its representatives. These political struggles also beget threats of popular action and, at times, eventuate in open rebellion and other disorders which are all the more deplorable and harmful since they come from a public to whom it has been given, in our modern democratic states, to participate in very large measure in public life and in the affairs of government. Now, these different forms of government are not of themselves contrary to the principles of the Catholic Faith, which can easily be reconciled with any reasonable and just system of government. Such governments, however, are the most exposed to the danger of being overthrown by one faction or another. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

Men who live their lives on the level of naturalism are tied down at all times to earthly concerns, chief of which is the measure of their "success" in the eyes of others. There are various types of "success," of course. Naturalists in the private sector of commerce are concerned about the levels of their income. Naturalists in the fields of "entertainment" and sports quest after high levels of income and massive amounts of publicity. Naturalists in the realm of politics and governance care mostly about the acquisition and retention of political power, replete with all of the perquisites from accrue from such power, as an ultimate end in and of itself. True to the man whose "philosophy" served as a "bridge" between Christendom and Modernity, Niccolo Machiavelli, the modernists who populate both major organized crime families in the United States of America, the Democrat Party and the Republican Party, want to "win" for the sake of winning.

All manner of sophisticated means of achieving electoral "success" have been devised and refined in past thirty-five years or so since the development of methods of computer modeling and statistical abstraction, which makes it possible for random samples of whatever particular "universe" being polled to be composed of fewer and fewer people. (A "universe" is that part of a demographic segment of people that a pollster desires to question. A "universe" might consist of a small segment of the population, or it might consist of the entirety of citizens of voting age, or it might consist only those who classify themselves as "likely" voters who are registered to vote.) Polls, which used to take several weeks to produce because of the large number of people included in samples and the long time that it took to abstract the statistical information derived in the polling process, can be produced now on a nightly basis. And although even some of the best pollsters and their organizations can make monumental errors now and again, polling is a reasonably good "snapshot" of "public opinion."

Polls are used by political consultants to advise political parties and their candidates what sorts of "messages" will "play" with the particular universe (or universes) that they desire to target in a primary or a general election. Tactics are then devised to "penetrate" polling trends by means of negative advertising, which negative advertising is usually, although not always, "text marketed" before it is played in some forum of the mass media. The goal of all of this is to "win." Only a handful of career politicians refrain from the use of pollsters. This is not make the ideas of those who refrain polling any better than those to do use it if said ideas are opposed to the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law. It is, however, a rarity, to find any career politician from the false opposites of the naturalist "right" and the naturalist "left"who eschews polling in the advancement of his career.

Once elected to office, of course many career politicians at the national level (serving in either house of the United States Congress) make good use of their perquisites, drinking at the public trough in order to take "fact-finding" trips to exotic locales and to develop contacts with well-paid lobbyists in order to cultivate these contacts in the hopes of having lucrative "second" careers as lobbyists in their own right once the retire, whether volitionally or as a result of electoral defeat. Eager to show their constituents how "hard" they work for them, many members of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate use "earmarks" to channel funds for unspecified projects that will ingratiate themselves with more and more voters. This legalized robbery of the treasury of the United States of America goes on relatively unchecked, proving the prophetic insight of Alexis de Tocqueville when he noted in Democracy in America:

The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.

Alexis de Tocqueville did not realize that the American republic was founded on false, naturalistic principles, that it was bound to degenerate over the course of time into the opportunistic and materialistic free-for-all that has produced coarseness in the popular culture, mendacity in commerce and positivism in its politics and governance. The emergence of a caste of career politicians intent on securing and retaining as much power and privilege as possible was but a logical result of a constitutional regime that made no room for the Most Holy Trinity and was based upon man's ability to pursue "civic virtue" without a due submission to the Deposit of Faith that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made Man in Our Lady's Virginal and Immaculate Womb, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and without belief in, access to and cooperation with the graces won for us by that same Word made Flesh on the wood of the Holy Cross by the shedding of His Most Precious Blood and that are made present in the world by the working of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, ad that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces. Those who do not live and work at all times and in all of the circumstances of their lives for the honor and glory of the God--Father, Son and Holy Ghost--through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother contribute to the tearing down of order in the world.

Thus it is that the naturalistic world of career politicians is an illusion created by men who do not think of First and Last Things, men who consider themselves "gods," at least after a fashion, men who get offended at the any perceived slight, real or imagined, men think that their constituents exist to enable their own careers in power and for the enjoyment of perquisites, men who get panic-stricken when it dawns upon them that their political tricks no longer work, that other naturalists who are more clever than they are emerge to take their place as the organized gangsters du jour.

This sense of panic has struck Congressional Republicans as seventy-six months of George Walker Bush's plundering the treasury of the government of the United States of America to fund an unjust and immoral war as his friends in the corporate world continue to outsource jobs overseas while raising prices at home to maximize profits so as to continue exorbitant rates of remuneration that are out of all sense of proportion and justice have brought them to the realization that their time in power has come to end. For those whose only end is power, however, panic is the only response that they can muster in the face of the loss of that for which they live and crave and have sought to hold onto so tenaciously as no thought at all has been given to the pursuit of the common temporal good in light of man's Last End.

All of this proceeds in cycles as the public, consumed with its bread and circuses, tires of one set of gangsters in favor of others, content to believe that secular "salvation" comes from the election of the right sort of naturalist, who will then rob them of their own property to "solve" problems that have been created proximately by the promotion of various evils under cover of law, starting with the undermining of the family and its rights by means of divorce, contraception, abortion and the fraud that is the propaganda machine of public schooling. Only one thing is constant as civil law is further corrupted and popular culture is further coarsened: the power of the civil state grows more and more no matter who gets elected. Most citizens, arrogating unto the state complete obedience even when its ordinances are contrary to God's law and thus the good of their own souls, go "baa, baa" as to object would mean to take time away from their naturalistic, materialistic and hedonistic pursuits that define practically every single moment of their lives.

Just a brief review of the political history of the United States of America will reveal only one kind of change: the increase of the power of the civil state and the corruption of law and popular culture.

Federalists and Anti-Federalists did indeed have their differences at the beginning of the second form of national governance under the Constitution, which succeeded the Articles of Confederation in 1789 as the governing document of the Federal government. Those differences, however, gave rise to the formation of the first national political parties. It was not too long after that that principles of the competing sets of naturalists gave way to rank careerism, which was exploited by Andrew Jackson in his quest for the Presidency of the United States of America in 1824 and 1828.

The Masonic Jacksonians were in favor, with a few exceptions here and there, until the War between States. The Masonic Republicans were dominant in presidential elections for all but sixteen years between 1860 and 1932. Masonic Democrats (Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman) and their statist confreres (John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson) governed for twenty-eight of the succeeding thirty-six years. The naturalistic spirit of Judeo-Masonry was kept alive in the Republican administrations of Richard Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, who was a thirty-third degree Mason, Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush between 1968 and 1992, save the four years of the reign of appeasement represented by James Earl Carter, Jr. William Jefferson Blythe Clinton and his era of brazen criminality (White House fund-raisers featuring Red Chinese arms merchants) and intimidation of Americans opposed to the taking of innocent preborn life was succeeded by George Walker Bush's seventy-six month reign of unjust warfare, curbing of legitimate personal liberties, the increased funding of "family planning" programs both domestically and internationally, and the use of torture and illegal detention to better "secure" the nation (as the nation's southern border with Mexico has served as a sieve to provide illegal, cheaply paid and poorly treated workers to be exploited by corporate America).

Anyone who thinks that any of this represents "progress" is thinking naturalistically. The measure of national greatness is not wealth or international dominance or "progress" in realms of science or technology or the "upward mobility" of various demographic groups. The measure of the greatness of a nation is the measure by which its citizens seek to grow in holiness on a daily basis as members of the Catholic Church, people who strive for the happiness of Heaven in order that they might be ready to die at any moment so as to face their Particular Judgments and to receive the reward, after whatever time in Purgatory might be necessary to make satisfaction for the debt owed for their forgiven Mortal Sins and their unforgiven Venial Sins and their general attachment to their sins, of basking in the glory of the Beatific Vision of the Most Holy Trinity for all eternity. Is this the measure by which the average American citizen or his representatives at the local, state or national levels measures national greatness? Has this ever been the measure of national greatness in the United States of America?

Consider, once again, if you will, these prophetic words of Orestes Brownson in
National Greatness:

As of the individual, so of the nation. In like manner as justice and sanctity constitute the greatness of the individual, so do they constitute the greatness of the nation. "Justice exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." The great nation is the holy nation, rich in true obedience, and carried away by a divine passion for God and all holy things.

Suppose your nation does increase in wealth, in luxury, in refinement; suppose it does fell the primeval forest and enlarge its borders, multiply its manufactures, extend its commerce, and make all climes pour their riches into its lap; what then? Does it follow that such a nation is great, is glorious, and has reason to applaud herself for her achievements and to exult over the poor and simple? "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord." Where is it written, Blessed is the nation whose God is Mammon, and whose worship is thrift? Where are the nations who forgot the Lord, who put their trust in their ships, their traffic, their wealth, and luxuries? Where is that ancient Tyre, "whose merchants were princes, and her traders the nobles of the earth"? Where are all the nations of the old world, once renowned for their extended commerce, the richness of their stuffs, and the variety of their manufactures? They have passed away like the morning vapor, and a few solitary ruins alone remain to point the traveller to the seats of their world-renowned idolatry.

Taking the principles we have established, we can easily answer the question, whether we are or are not a great people, whether the path we are pursuing leads to true nation al greatness, or whether it leads from it. Are we as a people intent on gaining the end for which our Maker designed us? Are we remarkable for our humble observance of the precepts of the Gospel? Are we diligent to yield that obedience to which is promised eternal life? Far, very far, from it. We are a proud, loud-boasting and vain-boasting people. Our god is mammon, and our righteousness is thrift. Is it not so? To what do we point as proofs of our greatness? Is it not to our industrial achievements, our railroads, canals, steamboats, commerce, manufactures, material wealth and splendor? But where are our moral achievements, the monuments of our enlightened zeal for God, and humble devotion to his will? Religion we have in name, in form, in many forms and many strange forms; but where is the deep, all-pervading, all-active conviction that this world is not our home, that it is but an inn in which we may lodge for a night, but in which we may not, must not, dwell? Alas! the dominant passion of our country is worldly wealth and worldly distinction. We see it in the general pursuits of the people; we hear it in the almost universal tone of conversation; and we see it distinctly in the general scramble for wealth, in our demoralizing political contentions, and the all-devouring greediness for place and plunder.

If we look at the great political questions which agitate the public mind, we shall perceive that they are all questions concerning wealth, the means of facilitating its acquisition, of making it pass, or preventing it from passing, from the few to the many, or from the many to the few. Such are your bank questions, your tariff questions, your land-distribution questions. If you go beyond these, they are questions of the honors and emoluments of office. Not a pert upstart among us who has made his maiden caucus speech, but regards himself as qualified for any office in the gift of the people, from that of village constable up to that of president of the United States, and feels that he suffers great wrong, and adds another striking example of neglected merit, if not rewarded for his disinterested and patriotic exertions by some snug place with a fat salary. Scarcely a man seems contented to remain in private life, to live in obscurity, unheeded by his countrymen, in all humility and fidelity laboring to discharge his duty to his God, and to win the prize of eternal glory. We love the praise of men more than the praise of God; the low and transitory goods of time more than the high and permanent goods of eternity.

If we are poor, we are discontented, we regard ourselves as most miserable, and rail against Providence, who permits inequalities to obtain among brethren. No one is contented with his lot in life. We are all ill-at-ease. We would all be what we are not,- and have what we have not. And yet, with admirable simplicity, we ask, Are we not a great people? Nearly all the action of the American people, collectively or individually, has reference solely to the affairs of, time. Government sinks with us into a joint-stock concern for the practice of thrift. It has no divine authority, no high and solemn moral mission. In education even, the same low and earthly view obtains. We educate for time. We seek to fit our children for getting on, as we call it, in the world, -to make them sharp, bold, enterprising and successful business men. We teach them, indeed, that knowledge is power,-but power to outstrip their fellows in the pursuit of worldly goods. We teach them, indeed, that sloth is a mortal sin,-but sloth in the affairs of time and sense, not sloth in regard to our spiritual duties. We teach them to respect public opinion, to strive to be respectable, to be honored among men; rarely, and almost always ineffectually, to respect the law of God, to see the honor of God, and to despise that of men. Hence, they grow up timid time-servers, trimmers, moral cowards, afraid to say their souls are their own, to avow their honest convictions, if their convictions chance to be unpopular, or to follow God in the faith and worship he has ordained, if not held in repute, or if embraced only by the poor, the simple, of whom the world makes no account. To make a sacrifice for Christ, to give up all, houses, lands, wife, and children, for God, that we may have treasure in heaven, strikes us as something wholly uncalled for, as folly, as madness, worthy only of the dark ages of monkish ignorance and barbarity. To a worldly end conspire all our education, science, literature, and art.

Whatever cannot be pressed into the service of man as a creature of time and sense is by the immense majority of us condemned as useless and mischievous.

That we measure all things by the standard of this life and this world is evinced by the judgments we pass on other nations. In judging others, we always judge ourselves. Tell us what nation you place highest in the scale of nations, and you tell us what are your own views of what constitutes true national greatness. We, as a people, very generally count highest in the scale of contemporary nations those in which the national energy displays itself most exclusively in an industrial direction, and which are most successful in multiplying wealth and luxury. Since the great events in the sixteenth century, which out of courtesy we must call the reformation, although it was any thing but a reformation, there has sprung up a new social order, not known in the middle ages, and not yet universally adopted in Catholic countries. The whole tendency of this order is in an industrial direction. It places this world before the other, time before eternity, the body before the soul, the praise of men before the praise of God. It esteems the riches of this world more than the riches of divine grace, and bids us strive to live, not in the order of grace, but in the order of nature. Under this order the great aim is to be rich, independent, well off in time; to be distinguished, held in high repute one by another. We reverse the maxim of the Gospel, and say, Be not anxious for the soul, take no need to the worship of God, nor to obedience to his laws; but seek first to get on well in this world, look to the main chance, get rich, honestly, of course, if you can, but get rich, be distinguished, and then the kingdom of God and his justice will be added unto you unto you;--or if not, it will be no great matter.

That this must be so is the product of the false, naturalistic, anti-Incarnational, Anyone who thinks that things would be better if we "turned the clock" back to 1776 or 1787 has yet to learn the truth expressed by Pope Leo XII in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885:

So, too, the liberty of thinking, and of publishing, whatsoever each one likes, without any hindrance, is not in itself an advantage over which society can wisely rejoice. On the contrary, it is the fountain-head and origin of many evils. Liberty is a power perfecting man, and hence should have truth and goodness for its object. But the character of goodness and truth cannot be changed at option. These remain ever one and the same, and are no less unchangeable than nature itself. If the mind assents to false opinions, and the will chooses and follows after what is wrong, neither can attain its native fullness, but both must fall from their native dignity into an abyss of corruption. Whatever, therefore, is opposed to virtue and truth may not rightly be brought temptingly before the eye of man, much less sanctioned by the favor and protection of the law. A well-spent life is the only passport to heaven, whither all are bound, and on this account the State is acting against the laws and dictates of nature whenever it permits the license of opinion and of action to lead minds astray from truth and souls away from the practice of virtue.To exclude the Church, founded by God Himself, from the business of life, from the making of laws, from the education of youth, from domestic society is a grave and fatal error. A State from which religion is banished can never be well regulated; and already perhaps more than is desirable is known of the nature and tendency of the so-called civil philosophy of life and morals.

It is indeed a grave and fatal error to exclude the true Church from civil life, basing that civil life on the quicksand of religious indifferentism and the lie of "religious liberty," termed a heresy by Pope Pius VII in Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814. Atheism and barbarism are the only possible consequences of a governmental system founded on the false premises of religious indifferentism and religious liberty. There is no practical difference between Western naturalism and the anti-Theism of the French and Bolshevik Revolutions as each proceeds proceed from false premises. Western naturalism proceeds from an outward indifference to the true religion, although many of the American founding fathers were indeed overtly hostile to Catholicism in their "private" remarks. The French and Bolshevik revolutions proceed from a hatred of the true religion. The results, however, are the same over the course of time: the triumph of statism as the populace are reduced to but the mere creatures of the state.

To hold, therefore, that there is no difference in matters of religion between forms that are unlike each other, and even contrary to each other, most clearly leads in the end to the rejection of all religion in both theory and practice. And this is the same thing as atheism, however it may differ from it in name. Men who really believe in the existence of God must, in order to be consistent with themselves and to avoid absurd conclusions, understand that differing modes of divine worship involving dissimilarity and conflict even on most important points cannot all be equally probable, equally good, and equally acceptable to God. (Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885.)

The doctrine of modern Communism, which is often concealed under the most seductive trappings, is in substance based on the principles of dialectical and historical materialism previously advocated by Marx, of which the theoriticians of bolshevism claim to possess the only genuine interpretation. According to this doctrine there is in the world only one reality, matter, the blind forces of which evolve into plant, animal and man. Even human society is nothing but a phenomenon and form of matter, evolving in the same way. By a law of inexorable necessity and through a perpetual conflict of forces, matter moves towards the final synthesis of a classless society. In such a doctrine, as is evident, there is no room for the idea of God; there is no difference between matter and spirit, between soul and body; there is neither survival of the soul after death nor any hope in a future life. Insisting on the dialectical aspect of their materialism, the Communists claim that the conflict which carries the world towards its final synthesis can be accelerated by man. Hence they endeavor to sharpen the antagonisms which arise between the various classes of society. Thus the class struggle with its consequent violent hate and destruction takes on the aspects of a crusade for the progress of humanity. On the other hand, all other forces whatever, as long as they resist such systematic violence, must be annihilated as hostile to the human race.

Communism, moreover, strips man of his liberty, robs human personality of all its dignity, and removes all the moral restraints that check the eruptions of blind impulse. There is no recognition of any right of the individual in his relations to the collectivity; no natural right is accorded to human personality, which is a mere cog-wheel in the Communist system. In man's relations with other individuals, besides, Communists hold the principle of absolute equality, rejecting all hierarchy and divinely-constituted authority, including the authority of parents. What men call authority and subordination is derived from the community as its first and only font. Nor is the individual granted any property rights over material goods or the means of production, for inasmuch as these are the source of further wealth, their possession would give one man power over another. Precisely on this score, all forms of private property must be eradicated, for they are at the origin of all economic enslavement .

Refusing to human life any sacred or spiritual character, such a doctrine logically makes of marriage and the family a purely artificial and civil institution, the outcome of a specific economic system. There exists no matrimonial bond of a juridico-moral nature that is not subject to the whim of the individual or of the collectivity. Naturally, therefore, the notion of an indissoluble marriage-tie is scouted. Communism is particularly characterized by the rejection of any link that binds woman to the family and the home, and her emancipation is proclaimed as a basic principle. She is withdrawn from the family and the care of her children, to be thrust instead into public life and collective production under the same conditions as man. The care of home and children then devolves upon the collectivity. Finally, the right of education is denied to parents, for it is conceived as the exclusive prerogative of the community, in whose name and by whose mandate alone parents may exercise this right.

What would be the condition of a human society based on such materialistic tenets? It would be a collectivity with no other hierarchy than that of the economic system. It would have only one mission: the production of material things by means of collective labor, so that the goods of this world might be enjoyed in a paradise where each would "give according to his powers" and would "receive according to his needs." Communism recognizes in the collectivity the right, or rather, unlimited discretion, to draft individuals for the labor of the collectivity with no regard for their personal welfare; so that even violence could be legitimately exercised to dragoon the recalcitrant against their wills. In the Communistic commonwealth morality and law would be nothing but a derivation of the existing economic order, purely earthly in origin and unstable in character. In a word. the Communists claim to inaugurate a new era and a new civilization which is the result of blind evolutionary forces culminating in a humanity without God.

When all men have finally acquired the collectivist mentality in this Utopia of a really classless society, the political State, which is now conceived by Communists merely as the instrument by which the proletariat is oppressed by the capitalists, will have lost all reason for its existence and will "wither away." However, until that happy consummation is realized, the State and the powers of the State furnish Communism with the most efficacious and most extensive means for the achievement of its goal.

Such, Venerable Brethren, is the new gospel which bolshevistic and atheistic Communism offers the world as the glad tidings of deliverance and salvation! It is a system full of errors and sophisms. It is in opposition both to reason and to Divine Revelation. It subverts the social order, because it means the destruction of its foundations; because it ignores the true origin and purpose of the State; because it denies the rights, dignity and liberty of human personality. (Pope Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937.)

Judeo-Masonry takes many forms. Both the supposedly "benign" religious indifferentism of the Protestants and Masons and Deists who founded the United States of American and the overt hostility to the true Faith exhibited by the French and Bolshevik revolutions are manifest in civil law and popular culture throughout the United States of America. Catholicism is the one and only antidote to this madness. There are no short-cuts. There exists no naturalistic, nondenominational or interdenominational way to retard the madness of Modernity, with which Modernism has made its "reconciliation."

We must refer all things at all times to the true Faith. Pope Saint Pius X, who denounced most prophetically each of the major developments that would transpire in the conciliar revolution (especially as relates to conciliarism's warfare upon the nature of dogmatic truth and conciliarism's embrace of the principles of The Sillon condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910), explained this most succinctly in Singulari Quadam, September 24, 1912:

These are fundamental principles: No matter what the Christian does, even in the realm of temporal goods, he cannot ignore the supernatural good. Rather, according to the dictates of Christian philosophy, he must order all things to the ultimate end, namely, the Highest Good. All his actions, insofar as they are morally either good or bad (that is to say, whether they agree or disagree with the natural and divine law), are subject to the judgment and judicial office of the Church.

The same sainted pontiff, writing in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, reminded Catholics of the immutable truth that the civil state has the obligation to help to foster those conditions wherein its citizens could better sanctify and thus save their souls as members of the true Church:

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it.

Do any of the "bush leaguers" in the organized crime families of either major political party in the United States of America understand even one word of this, no less accept it? I can't think of one who does. Let's run down the list.

Congressional Republicans? No, not one. No room for Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen among them.

Congressional Democrats? No, not one. No room for Christ the King and Mary out Immaculate Queen among them.

The pro-abort Hillary Rodham Clinton, who invented a story of coming under "sniper fire" in Bosnia in 1996 in order to burnish her "credentials" as an experienced hand at foreign policy? Ah, I don't think so.

The pro-abort Barack Hussein Obama, who invented a story of stone-faced automobile company executives to make it appear as though he "talks tough" to corporate America? Let's be serious:

Is this another Bosnian sniper incident, where a Democratic candidate for president describes a scene involving some personal courage, but later videotape shows that maybe perhaps it wasn't really quite all like that exactly?

Barack Obama is very fond of telling receptive audiences the story about how in May 2007 he walked right into the automotive lion's den of Detroit and told those industrialists they were going to have to shape up, change the way they do things and start making more fuel-efficient vehicles to protect our environment.

"And I have to say," Obama tells his chuckling followers, "that when I delivered that speech, the room got really quiet. Nobody clapped."

Well, in honor of Obama's return campaign visit to Michigan last week, someone -- perhaps Republicans, perhaps someone closer to home politically -- assembled videotape of Obama's oft-told tale and spliced it side by side with videotape of that actual Detroit speech.

The room wasn't quiet at all. Obama, in fact, got a loud round of applause. And at the end of his address the camera's view of him at the podium was partially blocked because the audience of local businesspeople and automotive executives rose to give him a standing ovation. (Los Angeles Times,
TOP OF THE TICKET Blog Excerpts..)

The pro-abort (in just a "few" cases in surgical abortion, you understand, only a "few," right) John McCain, who like the hapless Robert Joseph Dole, Jr., before him, is devoid of even any coherently thought out ideas on the merely naturalistic level and is totally dependent upon textual aides when speaking of public policy matters lest he fall into one or another of an increasing number of gaffes? No, no room for Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen here.

We must pray and worth for nothing other than the restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen, starting in our own families by making (and then renewing) our the Enthronement of our homes to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. We must see beyond the "trees" (that is, individual issues that are but symptoms of the natural degeneration of a world that has overthrown the Social Reign of Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen) of the moment and teach our children to begin each of their prayers and their daily works in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Whose Blessed Vision we wish to behold for all eternity.

The instruction given by Saint Louis IX, King of France, to his son and successor, the then Prince Philip III, which has been quoted on this site before, is important for us to consider once again as an antidote to being deceived by the naturalists of the false opposites of the "right" and the "left" into thinking that things will get better--or at least not any worse--as a result of the fraud that is electoral politics:

1. To his dear first-born son, Philip, greeting, and his father's love.

2. Dear son, since I desire with all my heart that you be well "instructed in all things, it is in my thought to give you some advice this writing. For I have heard you say, several times, that you remember my words better than those of any one else.

3. Therefore, dear son, the first thing I advise is that you fix your whole heart upon God, and love Him with all your strength, for without this no one can be saved or be of any worth.

4- You should, with all your strength, shun everything which you believe to be displeasing to Him. And you ought especially to be resolved not to commit mortal sin, no matter what may happen and should permit all your limbs to be hewn off, and suffer every manner of torment , rather than fall knowingly into mortal sin.

5. If our Lord send you any adversity, whether illness or other in good patience, and thank Him for it, thing, you should receive it in good patience and be thankful for it, for you ought to believe that He will cause everything to turn out for your good; and likewise you should think that you have well merited it, and more also, should He will it, because you have loved Him but little, and served Him but little, and have done many things contrary to His will.

6. If our Lord send you any prosperity, either health of body or other thing you ought to thank Him humbly for it, and you ought to be careful that you are not the worse for it, either through pride or anything else, for it is a very great sin to fight against our Lord with His gifts.

7. Dear son, I advise you that you accustom yourself to frequent confession, and that you choose always, as your confessors, men who are upright and sufficiently learned, and who can teach you what you should do and what you should avoid. You should so carry yourself that your confessors and other friends may dare confidently to reprove you and show you your faults.

8. Dear son, I advise you that you listen willingly and devoutly the services of Holy Church, and, when you are in church, avoid to frivolity and trifling, and do not look here and there; but pray to God with lips and heart alike, while entertaining sweet thoughts about Him, and especially at the mass, when the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ are consecrated, and for a little time before.

9. Dear son, have a tender pitiful heart for the poor, and for all those whom you believe to be in misery of heart or body, and, according to your ability, comfort and aid them with some alms.

10. Maintain the good customs of your realm, and put down the bad ones. Do not oppress your people and do not burden them with tolls or tailles, except under very great necessity.

11. If you have any unrest of heart, of such a nature that it may be told, tell it to your confessor, or to some upright man who can keep your secret; you will be able to carry more easily the thought of your heart.

12. See to it that those of your household are upright and loyal, and remember the Scripture, which says: "Elige viros timentes Deum in quibus sit justicia et qui oderint avariciam"; that is to say, "Love those who serve God and who render strict justice and hate covetousness"; and you will profit, and will govern your kingdom well.

13. Dear son, see to it that all your associates are upright, whether clerics or laymen, and have frequent good converse with them; and flee the society of the bad. And listen willingly to the word of God, both in open and in secret; and purchase freely prayers and pardons.

14. Love all good, and hate all evil, in whomsoever it may be.

15. Let no one be so bold as to say, in your presence, words which attract and lead to sin, and do not permit words of detraction to be spoken of another behind his back.

!6. Suffer it not that any ill be spoken of God or His saints in your presence, without taking prompt vengeance. But if the offender be a clerk or so great a person that you ought not to try him, report the matter to him who is entitled to judge it.

17. Dear son, give thanks to God often for all the good things He has done for you, so that you may be worthy to receive more, in such a manner that if it please the Lord that you come to the burden and honor of governing the kingdom, you may be worthy to receive the sacred unction wherewith the kings of France are consecrated.

18. Dear son, if you come to the throne, strive to have that which befits a king, that is to say, that in justice and rectitude you hold yourself steadfast and loyal toward your subjects and your vassals, without turning either to the right or to the left, but always straight, whatever may happen. And if a poor man have a quarrel with a rich man, sustain the poor rather than the rich, until the truth is made clear, and when you know the truth, do justice to them.

19. If any one have entered into a suit against you (for any injury or wrong which he may believe that you have done to him), be always for him and against yourself in the presence of your council, without showing that you think much of your case (until the truth be made known concerning it); for those of your council might be backward in speaking against you, and this you should not wish; and command your judges that you be not in any way upheld more than any others, for thus will your councillors judge more boldly according to right and truth.

20. If you have anything belonging to another, either of yourself or through your predecessors, if the matter is certain, give it up without delay, however great it may be, either in land or money or otherwise. If the matter is doubtful, have it inquired into by wise men, promptly and diligently. And if the affair is so obscure that you cannot know the truth, make such a settlement, by the counsel of s of upright men, that your soul, and the soul your predecessors, may be wholly freed from the affair. And even if you hear some one say that your predecessors made restitution, make diligent inquiry to learn if anything remains to be restored; and if you find that such is the case, cause it to be delivered over at once, for the liberation of your soul and the souls of your predecessors.

21. You should seek earnestly how your vassals and your subjects may live in peace and rectitude beneath your sway; likewise, the good towns and the good cities of your kingdom. And preserve them in the estate and the liberty in which your predecessors kept them, redress it, and if there be anything to amend, amend and preserve their favor and their love. For it is by the strength and the riches of your good cities and your good towns that the native and the foreigner, especially your peers and your barons, are deterred from doing ill to you. I will remember that Paris and the good towns of my kingdom aided me against the barons, when I was newly crowned.

22. Honor and love all the people of Holy Church, and be careful that no violence be done to them, and that their gifts and alms, which your predecessors have bestowed upon them, be not taken away or diminished. And I wish here to tell you what is related concerning King Philip, my ancestor, as one of his council, who said he heard it, told it to me. The king, one day, was with his privy council, and he was there who told me these words. And one of the king's councillors said to him how much wrong and loss he suffered from those of Holy Church, in that they took away his rights and lessened the jurisdiction of his court; and they marveled greatly how he endured it. And the good king answered: "I am quite certain that they do me much wrong, but when I consider the goodnesses and kindnesses which God has done me, I had rather that my rights should go, than have a contention or awaken a quarrel with Holy Church." And this I tell to you that you may not lightly believe anything against the people of Holy Church; so love them and honor them and watch over them that they may in peace do the service of our Lord.

23. Moreover, I advise you to love dearly the clergy, and, so far as you are able, do good to them in their necessities, and likewise love those by whom God is most honored and served, and by whom the Faith is preached and exalted.

24. Dear son, I advise that you love and reverence your father and your mother, willingly remember and keep their commandments, and be inclined to believe their good counsels.

25. Love your brothers, and always wish their well-being and their good advancement, and also be to them in the place of a father, to instruct them in all good. But be watchful lest, for the love which you bear to one, you turn aside from right doing, and do to the others that which is not meet.

26. Dear son, I advise you to bestow the benefices of Holy Church which you have to give, upon good persons, of good and clean life, and that you bestow them with the high counsel of upright men. And I am of the opinion that it is preferable to give them to those who hold nothing of Holy Church, rather than to others. For, if you inquire diligently, you will find enough of those who have nothing who will use wisely that entrusted to them.

27. Dear son, I advise you that you try with all your strength to avoid warring against any Christian man, unless he have done you too much ill. And if wrong be done you, try several ways to see if you can find how you can secure your rights, before you make war; and act thus in order to avoid the sins which are committed in warfare.

28. And if it fall out that it is needful that you should make war (either because some one of your vassals has failed to plead his case in your court, or because he has done wrong to some church or to some poor person, or to any other person whatsoever, and is unwilling to make amends out of regard for you, or for any other reasonable cause), whatever the reason for which it is necessary for you to make war, give diligent command that the poor folk who have done no wrong or crime be protected from damage to their vines, either through fire or otherwise, for it were more fitting that you should constrain the wrongdoer by taking his own property (either towns or castles, by force of siege), than that you should devastate the property of poor people. And be careful not to start the war before you have good counsel that the cause is most reasonable, and before you have summoned the offender to make amends, and have waited as long as you should. And if he ask mercy, you ought to pardon him, and accept his amende, so that God may be pleased with you.

29. Dear son, I advise you to appease wars and contentions, whether they be yours or those of your subjects, just as quickly as may be, for it is a thing most pleasing to our Lord. And Monsignore Martin gave us a very great example of this. For, one time, when our Lord made it known to him that he was about to die, he set out to make peace between certain clerks of his archbishopric, and he was of the opinion that in so doing he was giving a good end to life.

30. Seek diligently, most sweet son, to have good baillis and good prevots in your land, and inquire frequently concerning their doings, and how they conduct themselves, and if they administer justice well, and do no wrong to any one, nor anything which they ought not do. Inquire more often concerning those of your household if they be too covetous or too arrogant; for it is natural that the members should seek to imitate their chief; that is, when the master is wise and well-behaved, all those of his household follow his example and prefer it. For however much you ought to hate evil in others, you should have more hatred for the evil which comes from those who derive their power from you, than you bear to the evil of others; and the more ought you to be on your guard and prevent this from happening.

3!. Dear son, I advise you always to be devoted to the Church of Rome, and to the sovereign pontiff, our father, and to bear him the the reverence and honor which you owe to your spiritual father.

32. Dear son, freely give power to persons of good character, who know how to use it well, and strive to have wickednesses expelled from your land, that is to say, nasty oaths, and everything said or done against God or our Lady or the saints. In a wise and proper manner put a stop, in your land, to bodily sins, dicing, taverns, and other sins. Put down heresy so far as you can, and hold in especial abhorrence Jews, and all sorts of people who are hostile to the Faith, so that your land may be well purged of them, in such manner as, by the sage counsel of good people, may appear to you advisable.

33. Further the right with all your strength. Moreover I admonish you you that you strive most earnestly to show your gratitude for the benefits which our Lord has bestowed upon you, and that you may know how to give Him thanks therefore.

34. Dear son, take care that the expenses of your household are reasonable and moderate, and that its moneys are justly obtained. And there is one opinion that I deeply wish you to entertain, that is to say, that you keep yourself free from foolish expenses and evil exactions, and that your money should be well expended and well acquired. And this opinion, together with other opinions which are suitable and profitable, I pray that our Lord may teach you.

35. Finally, most sweet son, I conjure and require you that, if it please our Lord that I should die before you, you have my soul succored with masses and orisons, and that you send through the congregations of the kingdom of France, and demand their prayers for my soul, and that you grant me a special and full part in all the good deeds which you perform.

36. In conclusion, dear son, I give you all the blessings which a good and tender father can give to a son, and I pray our Lord Jesus Christ, by His mercy, by the prayers and merits of His blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary, and of angels and archangels and of all the saints, to guard and protect you from doing anything contrary to His will, and to give you grace to do it always, so that He may be honored and served by you. And this may He do to me as to you, by His great bounty, so that after this mortal life we may be able to be together with Him in the eternal life, and see Him, love Him, and praise Him without end. Amen. And glory, honor, and praise be to Him who is one God with the Father and the Holy Spirit; without beginning and without end. Amen.(Medieval Sourcebook: Louis IX: Advice to His Son.)

Imagine what the world would look like if those who exercised the offices of civil government took this advice for their own. Imagine what the world would look like if each person, despite his sinfulness, attempted to live as a redeemed creature who remembers that He has been created by God the Father, redeemed by God the Son, and sanctified by God the Holy Ghost, offer all to that same Most Holy Trinity through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, remembering that his very Guardian Angel beholds the face of God at all times! Imagine what the world would look like if each person knew and took seriously the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication. Imagine what the world would look like if we trusted in the power of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary to retard evil in our own lives and in that of the world around us.

The devil knows what such a world would look like. It existed, although never perfectly and always with the problems caused by fallen human nature, in the Middle Ages. Our adversary worked hard to eradicate the memory of Christendom from the minds of men following its overthrow that he helped to execute by means of the Protestant Revolt and the rise of Judeo-Masonry. He has worked hard to distort and misrepresent the memory of Christendom since that time, deceiving men that they do not need take account of First and Last Things, that they indeed are free to reject the fact that it was God Himself Who created the world exactly as is recorded in the Book of Genesis:

And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth. And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth. And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat: And to all beasts of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to all that move upon the earth, and wherein there is life, that they may have to feed upon. And it was so done. (Genesis 1: 26-30.)

"Let us make man to our image and likeness." The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, which was revealed to us by the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made Man in His Most Blessed Mother's Virginal and Immaculate Womb, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, was contained in these very words of the first book of the Old Testament, the very written Word of God Himself. Anyone who thinks that there is a moment in our lives when we can the Most Holy Trinity and relegate any the Incarnation of the Second Person of that Most Holy Trinity to the merely "private" realm of life that has no direct relationship to public policy and statecraft ought to consider these words from The Athanasian Creed, which as, His Excellency Bishop Robert F. McKenna, O.P., noted in his Trinity Sunday sermon at Our Lady of the Rosary Chapel in Monroe, Connecticut, yesterday, May 18, 2008, was removed from the Divine Office when he was in the novitiate in 1951, part of the early revolutionary handiwork of the Vincentian Annibale Bugnini and the Franciscan Ferdinando Antonelli.

Whoever wills to be in a state of salvation, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic [apostolic/universal] faith, which except everyone shall have kept whole and undefiled without doubt he will perish eternally.

Now the Catholic faith is that we worship One God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Spirit. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, is One, the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal.

Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit; the Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated; the father infinite, the Son infinite, and the Holy Spirit infinite; the Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal. And yet not three eternals but one eternal, as also not three infinites, nor three uncreated, but one uncreated, and one infinite. So, likewise, the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Spirit almighty; and yet not three almighties but one almighty.

So the Father is God, the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God; and yet not three Gods but one God. So the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord; and yet not three Lords but one Lord. For like as we are compelled by Christian truth to acknowledge every Person by Himself to be both God and Lord; so are we forbidden by the Catholic religion to say, there be three Gods or three Lords.

The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone, nod made nor created but begotten. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and the Son, not made nor created nor begotten but proceeding.

So there is one Father not three Fathers, one Son not three Sons, and Holy Spirit not three Holy Spirits. And in this Trinity there is nothing before or after, nothing greater or less, but the whole three Persons are coeternal together and coequal. So that in all things, as is aforesaid, the trinity in Unity and the Unity in Trinity is to be worshipped. He therefore who wills to be in a state of salvation, let him think thus of the Trinity.

But it is necessary to eternal salvation that he also believe faithfully the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. The right faith therefore is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man.

He is God of the substance of the Father begotten before the worlds, and He is man of the substance of His mother born in the world; perfect God, perfect man subsisting of a reasoning soul and human flesh; equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, inferior to the Father as touching His Manhood.

Who although He be God and Man yet He is not two but one Christ; one however not by conversion of the Godhead in the flesh, but by taking of the Manhood in God; one altogether not by confusion of substance but by unity of Person. For as the reasoning soul and flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ. Who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again from the dead, ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, from whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies and shall give account for their own works. And they that have done good shall go into life eternal, and they who indeed have done evil into eternal fire.

This is the Catholic faith, which except a man shall have believed faithfully and firmly he cannot be in a state of salvation.

Our Lady is, as mentioned before, the daughter of the Father, the Mother of the Son, and the Spouse of the Holy Ghost. She was the instrument by which the Father had chosen from all eternity to send His Co-Eternal Son to us so that He might He receive from her by the power of the Holy Ghost a Sacred Humanity to redeem us on the wood of the Holy Cross, which has become for us a real manger from which we are fed the Divine Redeemer's very Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. It is to Our Lady we must turn in order to get to Heaven. It will be her prayers for us, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae, that will serve as a final plea for us to be the recipients of her Divine Son's Mercy as we take our last breaths.

We must show her, however, that we are hers, which we do by consecrating ourselves to her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, and by praying as many Rosaries each day as the duties of our states-in-life permit. Each Rosary is begun and ended in the Name of the Most Blessed Trinity as me make the Sign of the Cross. We recite the Apostles' Creed at the beginning of each Rosary, meditating upon the specific mission of each Person of the Blessed Trinity. We recite the Gloria Patri, in which we give glory to the Three Divine Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, six times in each Rosary, eighteen times if we pray a complete fifteen decade Rosary during the course of a day. Each nation on the face of this earth, without any exception whatsoever, is called to honor her publicly as its Queen, replete with holidays so that pilgrimages could be honor the daughter of Father, the Mother of the Son, and the Spouse of the Holy Ghost.

As we make the Sign of the Cross at the beginning of the recitation of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary, we should be reminded of the fact the lives of our souls began anew when a priest baptized us in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. We pray each day that the lives of our mortal bodies here on the face of this earth will end shortly after we have been given an Apostolic Blessing following the administration of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction. Those who keep this in mind will be able to counteract the naturalism that keeps even so many Catholics "earthbound" and worried about this or that "tree" when the real problem is the forest of naturalism that has grown up since the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King.

Sister Lucia dos Santos had a vision of the Most Holy Trinity in her convent in Tuy, Spain, on June 13, 1929. Our Lady, appearing as she had in the Cova da Iria twelve years before, was present. Please God and by the intercession of His Most Blessed Mother, may it be our privilege to eschew naturalism and to work at all times for the honor and glory of God: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in this life so that we may give Him glory and praise with her for all eternity in Heaven: